Thursday, April 2, 2015

Business suits up for culture wars -- April 2, 2015 column

For decades, social
conservatives have blamed liberals, “the media” and Hollywood for promoting
same-sex marriage and gay rights. Now they can add big business to the list.

The culture wars
are back – they never went far -- and corporations are emerging as a powerful new
player on behalf of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people.

“America’s business
leaders recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is
bad for business,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote Tuesday in an op-ed in The
Washington Post.

Cook, who came out
as gay last year, was among the chiefs of national and international companies
as well as celebrities who criticized Indiana and its Republican governor, Mike
Pence, for enacting a religious freedom law that critics saw as encouraging
discrimination against the LGBT community.

Nothing focuses the
mind of a state official like the threat of boycotts or trouble for local
businesses, so Pence reacted when other states banned their employees from traveling
to Indiana and companies and organizations threatened to cancel conventions. Angie’s
List, a nationwide business-rating service, put on hold its plans for a $40
million expansion in Indianapolis.

Pence backed off
the law he had previously signed, saying it needed a clarification or fix after
all.

“Was I expecting
this kind of backlash?” Pence said. “Heavens, no.”

Virginia Gov. Terry
McAuliffe and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, both Democrats, quickly put out the
welcome mat to businesses turned off by Indiana’s law. Virginia has a version
of the religious freedom law but McAuliffe signed an executive order in 2014 with
protections that Indiana lacks. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of
race, gender, religion and sexual orientation.

When the Arkansas legislature
passed a law similar to Indiana’s, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart joined other
companies in asking Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, to veto the measure.

The bill “threatens
to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas
and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold,” Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon
tweeted.

Hutchinson refused
to sign the bill he had supported, saying it too needed work. His son Seth had
signed a petition asking him to veto it, Hutchinson said, noting generational
differences in opinion.

About 80 percent of
people 18 to 29 think gay marriage should be valid, a Gallup poll found last
year. Support declines with age, and among people 65 and older, only 42 percent
support gay marriage.

Three weeks before
Pence signed Indiana’s religious freedom law, 379 employers filed a friend of
the court brief March 5 in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage.

The firms range
from cupcake bakers and plumbers to Fortune 100 companies. Some are names that
the youngest Americans grew up with: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Starbucks
and Twitter.

Others are traditional economic stalwarts: Aetna, Alcoa,
Colgate-Palmolive, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Marriott,
Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, United Air Lines, Verizon Communications, Wells
Fargo and Xerox. And from the world of sports, the New England Patriots and
Tampa Bay Rays.

The companies asked
the court to affirm the rights of gay people to marry in all 50 states, but the
brief did not cite social or civil rights reasons. Their legal argument was all
about business and the burden the “fractured legal landscape” places on
employers.

Currently, 13
states ban same-sex marriage and it is legal in 36 states and the District of
Columbia. The legality of same-sex marriage is unclear in Alabama, where state
and federal courts have issued conflicting orders.

Having such a
patchwork of state laws “creates legal uncertainty and imposes unnecessary
costs and administrative complexities on employers,” the brief said. Employers are forced to treat workers in similar
circumstances differently simply because they live in different states.

The court has
scheduled oral arguments April 28 in Obergefell
v. Hodges, which consolidates four
same-sex marriage cases. A ruling is expected this summer.

Everyone has a
right to his or her religious beliefs, but business clearly believes the
economic case for equal rights has been made. In today’s culture wars, social
conservatives ignore that fact at their political peril.